alexia - number one

on sunday a mate of mine (ian) played mixed some tunes together on a shoutcastradio session, so did i after him but this has nothing to do with it. ian was playing an assortment of drum & bass tunes and halfway in he played a blu mar ten's "nobody here".

i'd never heard that before but once the vocal hit i kept thinking "i know those lyrics" and it hit me directly, they had borrowed the lyrics and vocal melody from this song. alexia's "number one" from '96, it's one of my favourites of all time and i'm saying that as someone who actually has:
a) several favourite eurodance favourites that isn't the most popular tunes out there (i.e. "what is love?" or "mr. vain" or "rhythm is a dancer", etc etc etc)
b) likes and spun a hefty dose of eurodance over the years.

now granted i can't for 100% sure say that this song is original since eurodance was built on borrowing elements. i looked around and i can't find where robyx (who produced this track) would have taken the hook from but do correct me if i'm wrong. anyhow, the lyric lines were changed a little bit sure enough it's the almost the same.

it was a fun revelation and it's always fascinating when someone or some people (in this case) takes something from a genre less credible and work it into something that is quite serious. since normally it's the other way around but this concept is employed a lot in recent years and especially when they try to make it darker or moodier than the carefree original.

but let's get back to the original since i have no relation to blu mar ten's track besides hearing it that it on sunday and then hearing it on junodownload later again. this track just clicked with me instantly and showed me that alexia had more hits than "uh la la la" because back in the 90's i hadn't heard anything besides that.

the track itself isn't any different from other eurodance track, it employs the usual driving beats and rolling basslines and catchy melodies. i'm not going to say that it was a whole new breed of tracks because it's a robyx production as per usual but he knew how to make good tunes, especially for corona and ice mc.

that piano melody and alexia's deliverance is just great and i hold this one dear to my heart as cheesy as that sounds. and i bet it's a big contradiction for me to like this considering i was bigging up something like jan jelinek, goran kafjes and emmanuel top just a while ago but that's me. i like almost everything and i'm not afraid to tell that.

buy here (djtunes)

also well recommended is noel sanger's remixes for the us market, they are trancy and well done and can work in a trance set even in modern standards. especially the dub

buy here (djtunes)